Page 63 of Grinch Girl

But I couldn’t. I just wanted the night to be over. The month to be over. When the holidays were over and life got back to normal, I’d feel…

Well, I didn’t know how I’d feel. After Greta’s death this fall, I’d mostly vacillated between deep grief and overwhelming numbness. At some point, I’d refocused on my promise to her and my plan. What needed to change in my day-to-day life to make it better. Concentrating on those three steps had made some of the grief fade because they were so simple and clear: I’d promised Greta I’d make my life better. I’d follow her framework. I’d be happier.

But now things weren’t simple anymore. Everything was blurry.

The wind blew stronger with every step I slid now, and the snow and hair flew in a steady stream, right across my field of vision. How far out had I walked anyway?

I finally pulled my freezing hands out of my pockets to try to gather my hair away from my face. Oh wow, I was right at the edge of the far end of the pier. Between the blowing snow and setting sun, the visibility was much worse than I’d expected.

A blast of strong wind knocked me a few inches to the left, a feeling of vertigo channeling through my inner ears and down my nose. The whiskey roiled hard in my stomach, and I bent in half, taking in deep draws of breath through my nose until the sick feeling passed.You’re OK. You’re OK.Oh God, were any of the cameras filming me right now?

The thought made me shoot straight up, which was a terrible, terrible idea. Black spots danced at the edges of my vision and the sudden shift in weight made me slide backward on the skinny heels. I lost my balance completely.

Falling on my butt on the pier would have been bad enough. But I was out on the very end, and I went right off the edge, breaking the ice and plunging into the depths of the frigid winter water.

Chapter Nineteen

One Saturday morningin January of every year, the hearty folks of Falworth arranged a polar plunge in which residents egged each other on to jump into the lake. Bella and I had participated a few times in our teens—a misguided effort to show how tough we were.

So this wasn’t the first time I’d been underwater in the winter lake.

But jumping in the water on a bright morning in your bathing suit in front of a group of cheering goofballs who were ready to yank you back out as soon as you surfaced and rush you to warmth and breakfast was very different than what was happening right now.

The shock of it came close to stealing my sanity. One moment I’d been standing on the pier pouting and contemplating the next steps of my life, and the next I was swallowed whole.

By lake water so cold it leached every sensible thought from my head. As my body temperature plummeted, the only thought in my head was “Oh. Fuck. Cold.”

I’d fallen in with some velocity, my right hip hitting the ice layer first and smashing through it. Now I was sinking, down, down, down. The water was ruthless and thick. My muscles went completely still and my lungs seized.

Jane!

I didn’t know if it was an actual voice or just my own brain screaming at me to react, but I finally jolted from my shocky stupor.

I thrashed in the water, Kelly’s puffy jacket hampering my movements.Calm down.The water was only about ten feet deep here. I just needed to push off the bottom or kick my way to the surface. If the pier was too high for me to heave myself out, I could still grab on to it and monkey-crawl my way to the shore. It would be difficult and humiliating, but not life-threatening. I reached up my hands to the surface and kicked with both feet.

I didn’t move.

I kicked again and pushed my arms down hard, trying to propel myself upward—but it didn’t work.

Panic got its teeth in me now, and I thrashed again, feeling a horrifying pinch in my lungs. I was running out of air. Something had my right foot! I could kick cleanly with my left, but my right was stuck fast by some underwater debris.

Oh my God. I couldn’t swim. I reached up to the sky in vain—I couldn’t get to the surface. I couldn’t get free!

My brain was so crazed that at first I thought I’d imagined it, a brushing of hands against mine.

But no! I felt it again. It was real! Strong, warm hands tugging on mine. Hard yanks. Someone was trying to pull me out. Bubbles frothed from my lips as most of my remaining air escaped.Hurry,my brain screamed.

The hands couldn’t pull me up. I was well and truly stuck. And I was starting to not feel the cold anymore.

Whoosh!A big disturbance in the water next to me. Underwater splashing sounds echoed in my ears and water rushed hard against my face. Someone had jumped in after me, I realized, with faint astonishment.

Thank God. Thank God. I didn’t think anyone had even seen me on the pier. Who had followed me? Nate? Had he been worried when I hadn’t returned to the fire? Or maybe Michael. He was always very concerned about water safety and wouldn’t have liked to see my drunk ass stumbling on the pier.

Now, the strong hands were patting my body and tugging. With my tiniest bit of remaining strength, I grabbed the hands and put them on my right thigh. Thank God the person understood and started yanking hard at my stuck leg.

It wouldn’t budge.

Oh God, the person needed to get away from me before they got hypothermia too. If I couldn’t be saved, I didn’t want to take someone else down with me. I pushed at the person with the last of my strength, trying to shove them up to the surface.

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